Joe Girardi Is Handling ARod’s Retirement Terribly, & Now He Looks Like an Idiot

As nearly everybody in America knows, Alex Rodriguez is retiring from baseball on August 12th. Though he’s widely disliked and wouldn’t receive a retirement tour like Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, most people expected him to at least play, except for Joe Girardi.

The Yankees skipper said “My job description does not entail farewell tours.” That’s funny, because everybody remembers 2014 as Derek Jeter travelled with the Yankees across the country receiving gifts from every team they faced. The same happened with Mariano Rivera in his final season.

While many people can claim the Yankees didn’t have a shortstop to play over Jeter, he batted second in 141 of the 145 games he played in his farewell season. That same season Jeter had the fifth worst OPS among qualified players (per Ken Rosenthal) and a well below average wRC+ of 74. When ESPN’s Andrew Marchand brought this to Girard’s attention the Yankee skipper responded with “there were no players who could hit #2 on that team.”

However Jacoby Ellsbury who is now the Yankees number two hitter this year, was the number 3 hitter on that team. Hmmmmmm.

I don’t know why Girardi refuses to play ARod, perhaps its because he’s delusional enough to believe the Yankees can still contend. Or maybe Hal Steinbrenner, who is basically forcing ARod out of playing, has instructed him to limit his at bats to prevent him from his 700 HR milestone. Either way Joe Girardi is not handling the situation the way many fans and reporters think he should. Borderline hypocritical?